To all wedding photographers

[walkien]

What program mode and what metering do you use for outdoor wedding? I know M mode has more control if you have time to set up a shot, but wedding is a fast pace event, if you take a split second to adjust the exposure, you might already missed an important shot. So what is your technique if you use M mode all the time? spot or eveluative metering?

[crackaonrice]

AV with evaluative metering is fastest for those situations that are really movin.

[Suedezu]

AV and evaluative metering here too.

[leninglass]

I know this is a dumb question but, what is evaluative metering?

[ofdphoto]

Almost always M. Lighting varies less than you might think ...

[tenoverthenose]

Almost always M. Lighting varies less than you might think ...

Especially if you add a flash into the mix

[dandan]

If i use a flash unit its almost always M, without a flash ill normaly use AV

[Tumeg]

I only have interned at a wedding,
I used manual the entire time... Was a pain, but I think it gave me better results.
In low light, M, I personally think is better. AV may have you doing a really slow shutter, hence motion blurr.

[Woogie]

Since this is an ourdoor wedding, you don't have to worry about the lighting too much. A re you planning on using flash to fill in the shadows? Either way, using Av mode would be easiest, in my opinion. Set the camera in Av, set your desired aperture, and fire away. If flash is going to be used and you get shutter speeds of over 1/250, either 1. set the flash to hi-speed sync or 2. stop the lens down until shutterspeeds fall below 1/250.

[crackaonrice]

I know this is a dumb question but, what is evaluative metering?

No dumb questions exist:

http://www.apogeephoto.com/march2005/jaltengarten32005.shtml

[sando]

Av outdoors with or without flash, and I'm always playing with EC.

Manual indoors usually, with or without flash.

[samnz]

Outdoors - anything that works man!!!

M/AV/TV/MACRO/SPORTS/PORTRAIT/LANDSCAPE - except OFF ;)

Indoors with flash - no argument...MANUAL

Outdoors I'm comfortable with Manual and more confident with the exposure frame-to-frame, than using AV: frame-to-frame.

I feel more in control of exposure bracketing in Manual as well - rather than relying on either the built-in AEB or adjusting aperture in AV mode.

Alot of people fear Manual in a sense that it means you have to think a bit more. And you do :lol: but you have control of the OVERALL image.

By no means does manual shooting make you a better photographer, nor does it mean you're 'old school'. It simply means that a single image is affected by your judgement alone and not the camera's.

Obviously these settings are subjective to many things...
Wide angle/B&G centre: Partial, or "spot the skin".
Candids: Partial mostly
Groups: Evaluative only - f4-8
Church indoors/no flash: Spot mostly

Use manual for an entire week I dare ya :) You'll be surprised at how intuitive it really is.

A simple breakdown...
- Set your desired aperture; say, f3.2 (very much like AV huh?)
- Meter the general area getting a feel for which areas are brighter and which areas are darker.
- By adjusting ONLY your shutter speed (front dial), your exposure value will be determined. Overexpose/underexpose - whatever you feel like!

Your peripheral vision improves with practice, but you will soon start to see the ENTIRE scene: composition, shutter value, aperture value and exposure value all-at-once. Oh - and your trigger finger gets a good work out too :lol: